


pathcode

by lovelivesinthedream



Category: EXO (Band)
Genre: M/M, OT12 - Freeform, based on the pathcode teasers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-11-28
Updated: 2015-11-28
Packaged: 2018-05-03 20:44:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,915
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5306165
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lovelivesinthedream/pseuds/lovelivesinthedream
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Yifan and Luhan are missing with only days left before the eclipse. They're being followed, and nobody knows what to do. It feels like time is running out.</p>
            </blockquote>





	pathcode

**Author's Note:**

> Originally written for yifantasy on livejournal. The prompt was simply the pathcode teasers. Honestly, I watched the teasers like a hundred times and tried my best, but I don't know if I did anything close to what the prompter was hoping for. Please let me know what you think.

“We shouldn’t have left,” Yifan hisses angrily, slamming his fist in the wall. He doesn’t even feel the sting of it.

Luhan grabs his arm before he can do it again. “We didn’t have a choice! Don’t you get it? If we’d stayed there, then we would have gotten caught!” His eyes are shiny with frustrated tears, but his face is fierce and his touch is strong. “We had to leave. It’s the only way we can help them now.”

“ _How?"_  he asks incredulously. “How can we help them? Our _family_ , all ten of them – including Minseok and Chanyeol, by the way – all of them, are stuck in that goddamn hell hole while we sit here, wherever _here_ even is, and we can’t do anything for them!” Yifan balls his hands into fists at his sides to keep from punching something else. He can’t believe they left everyone behind. Left _Chanyeol_  behind.

He thinks he might puke from the way his heart flops sickly at the bottom of his stomach.

“I-I can try to send them a message. Warn them about what’s coming.” Luhan’s mouth is set in a grim line. “Can you do something? Like with birds or –"

"And have them do what? _Fly_ at them?"

"I don’t know! I don't know, but we have to try to get them out, Yifan! We have to try anything we can."

There’s a pain and determined steel in his voice that resonates with Yifan’s own tumultuous feelings. It’s then that he finally realizes that he’s not alone in this. He’s not the only one going out of his mind with worries and fears, trying to think of any crazy plan to get their loved ones back. Luhan has left behind just as much as he has. They’ve both lost contact with everything that’s ever meant something to them. Their family. Friends. Brothers. _Lovers._

With a strengthened resolve, he clasps Luhan’s shoulder and nods solemnly.

“We’ll do whatever we can to get them out here with us,” he promises.

**********

_There’s something wrong.”_

_Chanyeol frowns, cradling his phone between his ear and his shoulder while he fishes his wallet out to pay for his coffee. The cashier gives him a dirty look for taking so long. He smiles at her crookedly, and she looks away with pink cheeks. It never fails to amuse him how fast people can change their minds for a pretty face. It always works._

_“Hello? Did you hear me?_ Damn it, _Chanyeol,” Kyungsoo hisses through the phone in his ear. “Something is happening, and you don’t even care.”_

_“Hey!” Chanyeol huffs indignantly. The door chimes as he exits the quaint little café. “I care! Just tell me what’s going on.”_

_Kyungsoo sighs heavily on the other end of the line. He sounds anxious, but then again, Kyungsoo is always stressed when he talks to Chanyeol. It’s nothing new. Chanyeol tries not to take it personally as he wanders down the street. A large black bird flies away when he passes an empty bench._

_“We can’t find Yifan,” Kyungsoo admits slowly. His voice is ragged and soft, gentled to deliver the blow. The words still hit Chanyeol like a dagger between the ribs._

*****

Jongin is the first to notice something isn’t quite right.

London is large and busy. The streets are soaked in rain and history, overpopulated with tourists and annoyed natives. The bus he usually takes to get to the station is down for the day. It’s odd because for as long as Jongin has been in London the bus has always been religiously on time.

Not today.

But what can he do? He’s meant to be at the airport in time to meet the flight, and standing around, upset because of a disrupted routine is not going to accomplish anything. It’s not an especially long walk to the subway station even if it feels that way while he tries to dodge around groups of people taking pictures of historic signs and sights every few feet.

It’s then that he notices it. The strange prickling feeling of being watched. When he glances around nobody seems to be paying him any attention. There’s a couple a few feet away, talking quietly and watching the cars speed by. An elderly man is on a bench, tossing bread crumbs to pigeons that flock around him. The voice of a mother yelling to her son to help her in the kitchen drifts out of an open window from above.

And then there’s the distinct click and whir of a camera shutter. From the corner of his eye he sees movement, a camera raised in his direction, a dark silhouette standing just out of sight. He spins quickly on the balls of his feet to try to catch the stranger in the act, but when he turns there’s nobody there.

Uneasy, Jongin pulls his coat tighter around himself and hurries on his way. There’s an itch under his skin, a pressure growing in his head. There are images that flash through his mind: tall walls, sand covered floors, darkness and still air, helplessness and loneliness stretching all around him. A wave of dizziness nearly causes his to lose his footing as he runs up the stone steps. A flock of black birds takes off around him, flapping and cawing.

He needs to see the others. He _has_ to. Desperate, he shouts out with his mind for Luhan. A long, silent minute passes and the anxiety spirals inside. No matter where they are, or how much distance separates them, Luhan’s telekinesis allows him to talk to them mentally.

He’s never ignored Jongin before. He’s never not answered.

Suddenly he’s taken with an overwhelming fear of being alone. Something feels _wrong_. It doesn’t make sense. He can’t even begin to describe it out loud. There’s a tug in his chest, urging him forward, faster, faster, away from his path to the airport. The sound of a camera shutter continues to echo in his ears, though whoever is doing it can’t possibly be close enough for him to hear, or he’d see them.

He can’t see anyone at all when he peers surreptitiously around.

The pressure reaches a fever pitch as his feet slow to a stop. He’s on a rooftop, old and empty, over-looking the wide stretch of the city. He can _feel_  someone behind him. In his peripheral vision he can see a dark red mist, vague and dream-like in the shape of a body. His muscles are vibrating in his skin – his instincts are demanding that he flee.

The mist gets closer and closer just out of his line of sight. He can’t look, slamming his eyes shut as he breaks out in a cold sweat. Behind his eyelids he sees a large black and white maze, and his heart nearly stops in some sort of primordial fear.

_This isn’t right,_ he thinks, trembling and with his hands clenched in fists by his sides. With every second the mist gets nearer. It’s so close to the eclipse, to their chance to finally go home, and this just isn’t right.

Filled with dread, he opens his eyes, steeling himself for the long journey, and vanishes in thin air.

*****

Zitao’s tea is lukewarm, like usual, but the old man that runs the place is so nice that he keeps coming back. After so many years on the planet, he’s still not used to the rolling syllables of the Spanish language. He’s always enjoyed how passionately it crashes in his ears when the natives speak. His own accent is stilted and awkward when he accepts a refill. He takes a sip to show his thanks, and nearly curses in surprise when it burns his tongue. It’s never so hot.

A pretty girl at one of the tables outside catches his eye and smiles, ducking her head to push a strand of dark hair behind her ear. Through the glass he can see a blush to her cheeks. He grins to himself, pleased. Yifan always says he’s got no game with the ladies, but look at this: he’s pulling them in without even doing a thing.

He’ll have to rub it in Yifan’s face next time he visits.

Settling in his seat, he unfolds the newspaper. An old friend of his is running for mayor, and he wants to see how the campaign is going so far. They’d gone to college together back when Zitao first arrived in Barcelona nearly twenty years ago. He hasn’t seen her since the five year reunion, and it’s too late to see her now. She’d notice he hasn’t aged a day. Some things can’t be explained away even with the advancements in plastic surgery and skin-care.

It’s a good thing they’ll be going home soon, or all twelve of them would need to move again within the next year or two. People always notice sooner or later and start asking questions that are better left unvoiced. None of the twelve enjoy the task, but it doesn’t end well for those that become too curious.

He gasps out loud when he sees the front page news. There’s a blurry photograph to accompany the headline, _‘The Comet Appears in 10 Cities of the World.’_ Ten lights are bright against the stark black sky, but that in itself isn’t what has him worried. Hastily, he scans the article until he sees the list of 10 locations. _London, Barcelona, Arizona, Berlin, Edinburgh…_ He doesn’t need to see the rest to know what they will be. Marseille, Almaty, Lyon, Yunnan and Colorado.

That is where all of them can be found right now with the exception of Yifan and Luhan. Those two travel between the rest of them, making sure everyone is well, keeping them updated. When Yifan isn’t traveling, he stays with Chanyeol and Luhan stays with Minseok. This is all a little too much to be a coincidence, especially this close to the eclipse.

He feels anxious and nervous, trapped as he looks around the café again. Everyone seems suspicious now. The girl stealing glances at him through the window, and the familiar old man puttering around behind the counter. Are they watching him too intently? Are they too interested in what he’s doing?

He needs to get out, get away. Find somewhere safe until he can talk to Yifan or Junmyeon. They’ll know what to do. They always do.

The power seems to surge. The lights flicker, dim and then too bright – a bulb shatters, raining broken shards of glass down from the ceiling.

Panic is dripping, sticky and hot down his spine. When he throws the newspaper down, it falls to the table in slow motion. He’s shocked into stillness for what could be a moment or an eternity. The world around him is stopped, frozen in place as he frantically stands and races to the door. People are still, conversations halted as they sit, unblinking and with mouths hanging open.

Zitao is familiar with this. He’s used to it. For as long as he’s existed, he’s been able to control time, stopping it or making it move faster at will. At this moment, he runs to the door as fast as he can, heart shuddering in his heaving chest.

The problem is that Zitao wasn’t in control when time stopped just now.

*****

“Do you need me to come down there?” Kyungsoo asks with concern. “I can be there in a few hours, tops. We can try to think of what to do next. How to find him. Maybe-”

Chanyeol interrupts, voice rough and deep, “Stay away.” He hangs up, cutting off whatever else Kyungsoo has to say. The phone case is melted, morphed by the heat in his touch when he turns it over in his palm. His hand is shaking. Smoke ropes out from beneath his fingers, and he does the only thing he can.

Run.

Chanyeol runs fast and far on his long legs. He can feel the flames under his skin, licking up his sternum, down his arms, fanning up along his fingertips to search for a release. It is building too fast, boiling up inside quicker than ever before. He tries to focus his thoughts to cool the scorch like he’s always done, keep the flames at bay, but he _can’t._ Only two things are spinning through his head: Yifan is missing, and he needs to get away from the town before he loses control.

The world passes him in a blur as he stumbles, exhausted and breathless into a sparse forest. Before he can take a single breath, the flames spring from his hands, catching instantly on the dry landscape. Once released, the inferno is impossible to stop – not now, not with trembling limbs and a scattered mind. His composure is completely shot. The phoenix in his blood is demanding freedom, trying to tear its way from his bones to find the dragon.

_He needs to find Yifan._

Wings of flame burst from his shoulders. He falls to his knees in the dirt, chest heaving, as the blaze explodes from his body, encompassing everything around him as far the eye can see. As he watches, helpless to stop the fire for the first in his long memory, the world around him burns. Flames dance up the trunks of trees, swallowing the leaves and branches until ash and soot fall in a dark imitation of snow. Smoke is heavy in the air, but he’s impervious to it and the heat.

He’s the only thing that will make it out of this firestorm unscathed.

When he stands on wobbling knees, limbs still shaking, he can only stare around him blankly at the destruction he’s caused. It was never supposed to be like this. Like a zombie he stumbles through the fire as it continues to burn around him. Long minutes pass that he’s completely unaware of. He feels numb and mindless.

He finds himself on top of a crest of rocks, blinking back to reality to see a barren desert landscape around him. Far, far in the distance there’s a sky filled with smoke. He regrets it, of course, but he can’t spare a thought for that at the moment. Now that his energy has been depleted by the devastation he left behind, he can actually focus on what’s important.

Chanyeol embraces the flames in his blood and pulls his long blue coat on straight, brushing off soot that’s dirtied his sleeve. He tugs his wide brimmed hat down further to block out the sun. He brings out the pocket watch that was given to him years and years ago, brushing his thumb over the curve of it. He holds the watch tight in his fist and sets off to find the one that gave it to him, determined to get Yifan back no matter what.

*****

Minseok trips over his own feet as he fumbles with his keys. _Since when do I own so many?_ he wonders when he twirls the key ring around his finger, watching in fascination as they spin around and glint in the under the streetlight. There are so many keys. Does he keep a lot of things locked up? He can’t quite recall in his fuzzy, drunken mind.

Getting the door open requires a lot of concentration on his part. The keyhole keeps moving before his eyes. It takes at least four tries, maybe more, but he’s not really able to focus enough to keep track. As soon as he’s inside he tears off his fluffy hat. To be honest, the cold doesn’t really bother him, and his body already feels like it’s burning up with all the alcohol in his veins – the hat is just to keep up appearances. Can’t have the natives wondering why his ears aren’t frostbitten, after all.

He snorts to himself, shaking his head and dragging a finger down his headphones to turn up the volume. The deep bass of the song is catchy. He likes the way it matches the pounding in his head. Drowns out all the thoughts he doesn’t want to think right now.

The stairs seem to stretch endlessly above him. Has he taken three flights? Five? It feels like he’s climbed a lot more than usual, yet his floor is still higher up. He nods his head to the beat, watching his feet to try to keep himself from falling on his face. The railing is cool under his hand. He hardly notices.

The music is so loud that he can’t hear anything at all. Not the nagging voice in his mind telling him to call Luhan and apologize. Not the short exhale of his sigh. Not the footsteps moving faster and faster toward him from above. A body collides into his side, knocking him off balance until he catches himself. There’s a man he’s never seen before, tall, dark and eyeing Minseok suspiciously.

The man’s stare is cold and dark, unnerving. It might be a trick of the light. It might be because Minseok is drunk off his ass. It can’t possibly be real… but there’s a red tint to the man’s gaze, a scarlet colored shadow that seems to pass over his eyes. Minseok feels hunted with a single look. The fine hairs on his arms stand on end under his jacket. He moves back, pressing himself against the railing to get away. The man shoves him with a sneer and hurries down the stairs.

Unsettled, Minseok warily watches the man go.

He still feels shaken by the time he gets to his room. Something just seems very off. Doing his best to ignore the feeling, he opens his door and steps into his dark apartment. It’s sparsely furnished, and he plops on the couch, the only place to sit, in exhaustion. He closes his eyes to block out the books and things strewn across the floor.

The apartment’s still a mess from the argument he and Luhan had a week ago. Luhan wanted a nicer place, or at least to decorate this place so it felt more like a home. Minseok didn’t think it was worth it – they’d be leaving when the eclipse came anyway, and Luhan was hardly around enough to tell Minseok how to live. It was the wrong thing to say. When frustrated, Luhan’s powers could get out of control and, furious and hurt by Minseok’s words that day, he’d accidentally tossed everything around. Then he’d stormed out to find Yifan; they were supposed to visit Junmyeon next. The two disappeared in the night when Yifan took flight, dark wings blending in with the black sky, leaving Minseok alone once again.

He blinks his eyes open sleepily when the television makes a fuzzy noise. Tired to the bone and still very drunk thanks to the glass of amber liquid in his hand, he figures that he’s probably imagining the way it is flickering, changing between the white-gray snow and the multicolored test bars. It’s possible he’s drank too much today.

But then he hears the wolf howl and his heart stops. There’s something niggling at the back of his head, a thought or memory trying to surface. He can almost feel the shift as his bones reshape, shorten and change. Skin disappearing underneath thick fur. It feels _so real_. He would almost swear it’s happened, though that’s simply impossible. For less than a second the head of a wolf appears on the screen, along with Edinburgh and a few numbers. A time, maybe. He needs to check on Sehun as soon as possible.

From the corner of his eye he can see a silver top spinning on the floor. Now that he’s paying attention, the top has been spinning since he walked in. His stomach drops to his feet in dread because there’s only one reason for it.

_Luhan._

He’s on his feet and racing out the door, his empty glass freezing behind him.

 

*****

  
Sehun doesn’t know where he’s going, only that there’s an unmistakable urge guiding him forward. There’s an address on his phone that he’s never heard of or been to. It’d been there when he finished talking to Jongin earlier – Jongin’s concerned voice still lingers in his ears as he blindly follows the directions.

The others are meeting ahead of schedule despite the danger of it. They’re not supposed to gather in groups larger than three. No more than two can be together for more than a week at a time. It causes problems. Their powers interact, feeding off each other, and even without meaning to, they always end up causing trouble for the natives of the planet that’s so different than their own. This planet is weak. It can’t handle their strength. It’s best for mankind if the twelve of them stay apart.

This is an emergency, though. Nobody knows what’s going on. Somebody or something is following each of them, watching them. They can’t find Yifan or Luhan. They’re all in a panic, and they have no choice but to band together for their own protection since the eclipse is still days away. It feels like they’re running out of time, and it’s making them all desperate.

The house, when he finally arrives at it, is nice: clean lines, lots of windows, neutral gray color scheme. It gives the whole place an open, airy feeling. The door opens at his touch. His shoes click on the new hardwood floors with each step. A toy airplane is floating in the air. In wonder, he pokes it, and the plane spins in a lazy circle, but it doesn’t fall.

A few more steps leads him to a living room where two young boys are sitting on the floor with their legs crossed, toys strewn around them. They’re staring at the toys floating above them. A train, two blocks, some cars. It’s weird, but Sehun doesn’t think these kids are threatening. He isn’t afraid of them. In fact, they’re presence is oddly familiar.

The blocks turn, the letters coming into view, and he gasps silently. _Y and L._

Yifan and Luhan!

With identical blank looks the boys watch Sehun. He starts to feel anxious, nervous. This is supposed to mean something, he knows it! Yifan and Luhan are trying to tell him something!

The sky darkens unnaturally fast. A shrill whistle rings through the air – a phantom tea pot screaming. The trees bend and sway under a harsh wind. As he watches, the sun vanishes behind the moon, completely blacked out within seconds, and no-no-no! This isn’t happening! The eclipse isn’t supposed to happen yet! They aren’t ready!

But they need to be.

He runs from the house as fast as he can, begging the wind to push him faster. The lock of the door clicks behind him.

*****

Junmyeon knows the second he wakes up that today will be the day.

Sehun had called him in a panic the day before. He spoke of a vision, a message from their missing brothers. Children and floating toys, an eclipse in mid-day and his powers going out of control. His voice had been scratchy and breathless from how fast and far he’d run to get away. Junmyeon was only able to sleep once he’d heard Sehun had made it to Minseok.

Jongin and Zitao are waiting together. Kyungsoo is watching over Chanyeol from a distance. Jongdae is supposed to find Yixing since Yixing refuses to leave the medical clinic he helps out at until he absolutely has to. Junmyeon himself has plans to meet with Baekhyun in just a few hours.

Or he _did_ have plans.

He can feel something watching him the second he blinks his eyes open. It’s unexplainable; a distinct chill in the air, a heaviness that weighs down his normally cheerful demeanor. He washes his hands, ignoring his disheveled early morning appearance in order to let the water slip over his skin.

It’s refreshing, and he instantly feels better.

If they’re being followed, played with like mice, then Junmyeon isn’t going to make it easy for whatever is behind all this. He gets dressed quickly and leaves the house to start on a thoughtless path. He spends his day wandering through fields and small patches of forest. He’s not sure where he is or where he’s going, but that means what’s following him can’t know either. He turns this way and that. Keeps walking when his feet begin to ache, when his stomach growls with hunger, when he just wants to collapse against a tree and sleep.

And that’s not right.

Their race isn’t weak like this. They aren’t overcome by hunger or fatigue after mere hours. Sure, on this planet they’re not nearly as strong as they were on their own, but they’re far more durable than the natives here. They can withstand things like this for weeks – months, even, if the situation was desperate enough.

And yet, here he is feeling like death warmed over after half a day. Whatever the thing is that’s following him is more than just creepy; it is physically draining him. With each step he feels himself getting weaker and weaker. Honestly, he begins to doubt himself. What was he thinking to wander off on his own? What if he goes missing like Yifan and Luhan? What will the others do without him? How could he be so foolish?

But then, a light misting of rain starts to fall, and his head clears instantly. He knows exactly why he’s walking around out here. It’s for all twelve of them. He’s buying the others some time. If the thing is following him, then it can’t possibly be following them right now. It doesn’t matter if it makes him uncomfortable as long as the others are okay.

Yifan would do the same thing. He’s certain of it.

Junmyeon walks faster as the rain energizes him. He still doesn’t know exactly what he’s doing, but an idea is beginning to form in his mind. There’s an abandoned row of houses south of where he’s staying. If he can just make it there, then he knows he can get away from this – this _thing_ that won’t leave them alone.

This sky is so different from the one above their home planet. The most obvious difference is, of course, the singular moon. That was the hardest part to get used to when they first arrived all those years ago. Now, Junmyeon feels a familiar pang of longing for his home as he tries to judge which direction to go by the sun’s position in the sky.

Turning toward his destination, he sets off as the rain begins to fall harder. He basks in it. It takes a lot of stumbling over upturned roots and the holes made by small animals in the fields, but after a brisk walk, he finally arrives at the abandoned neighborhood. These were probably high-class when they were first built. Now, they crumble and deteriorate, left helpless to the ravages of time and the elements.

It’s simple to find an empty pool behind one of the houses. The concrete is grey and scuffed in places, telling stories of the life it used to have. Junmyeon will give it a purpose one more time.

He slumps against the chilled wall of the deep end. It scratches his back through his thin shirt, but that doesn’t matter now. He’s finally able to see what it is that’s been shadowing him all day – a thin mist of red rises like smoke from the other end of the pool. It’s not fog or mist at all because he can’t bend or call it the way he can with forms of water. He has no power over it.

It steadily moves closer and closer to him, not fast or slow, but consistent. Not in a hurry as if it is uncaring of what Junmyeon will do. It’s instantly dreadful.

He wills the moisture out of the very air, urging it down to him as quickly as possible. The empty pool fills within seconds. As the mist gets even nearer, near enough that he begins to feel genuine fear, he lowers his head and closes his eyes. All he can hear is the rush of waves as they wash over him.

He’s scared, so very, very scared, but he knows he will be safe for now. The water will protect him.

*****

He’s meant to be on his way to China soon, but Jongdae wants to enjoy his last few hours here. This city has been good to him for all the years he’s lived amongst its rich history. The architecture is unlike anything he’s seen elsewhere.

On the rooftop, he feels like he is one with the sky. The wide, open expanse of it surrounds him as far as the eye can see. White sheets blow in the soft breeze, creating the impression of a private paradise. The only better view he’s ever seen was from Yifan’s back, high above the clouds.

But Yifan is missing now.

The cover of the ancient book in his hands feels cracked and worn. There are some places around the edges that have been smoothed from all the times he’s handled it, reading the pages with his sharp eyes and a strange twinge in his heart.

He doesn’t know where the book came from, but it’s about the twelve of them. It reads like a creepy sort of fairytale, a work of eerie fiction, and the most unsettling part is the way it makes him feel when he reads it. It’s like an itch he can’t scratch, or the phantom hint of perfume on the breeze. It’s so _familiar._ Each scene flashes like a distant memory through his mind. It’s intangible and blurred around the edges, but it seems so life-like. So real.

A bell tolls. He feels a stirring in the atmosphere. A drop in barometric pressure. Clouds are rolling in like waves, gathering at abnormal speeds. A flock of black birds take off from a rooftop in the distance. There are flashes and streaks of lightning, highlighting the dark storm clouds with their blinding color. Thunder rumbles threateningly overhead as the wind picks up.

The book falls from his hands as he stands, rushing to watch the sky. He reaches out with that part deep inside of him that belongs to the storms; however, his will has no visible influence. The storm continues to gather and build above him.

Incredulous, his mouth falls open. He can’t believe it. The others have told him that they’re powers are acting oddly, but he hadn’t really thought much of it in terms of himself. It’s entirely different to experience it firsthand. It feels like a part of himself has been cut away, taken from him.

It makes him angry.

The sky blackens as the moon sweeps in, blocking the sun from sight. Shadows swallows him. The sky opens up, unleashing a deluge of epic proportions. Jongdae tries again to call the lightning back, to halt the thunder’s booming roars.

It doesn’t work.

*****

Baekhyun is only slightly tipsy from a couple of drinks at the bar downtown. The city is bright around him as he wanders through the maze of streets under the star filled sky. _It’s pretty,_ he thinks to himself. The others are unlikely to share the sentiment.

Don’t get him wrong; Baekhyun longs for their own home as much as the rest of them. It’s just that he’s grown rather fond of this place, too. It’d be a lie to say he won’t miss it when they leave. The question is, does he miss it enough to stay?

But, no. Of course not. The thought’s so ridiculous that he can’t believe it even came up at all.  _Stay behind in this place where their powers are tempered, and they’re all separated by endless miles that seem to stretch forever?_ He’s never come up with something so dumb in his entire life. It’s completely out of character. Maybe he’s slightly more drunk than he originally believed.

That’s what he thinks until he realizes he’s being followed. The lights keep flickering in warning, a telling pattern that alerts Baekhyun to a strangeness in his surroundings. Something isn’t right here. The music is low and quiet in his ears. He can hear his breathing, the sound of his footsteps on the slick stone under his steady feet.

He can’t hear anyone behind him, but he knows he’s not alone. Something is there in the darkness that chills his blood in his veins and hurries his feet up the levels of steps. There’s a static-y buzz in his ears. He pauses, just for a second, pulling his phone out and catching the flicker of the light above his head from the corner of his eye.

His screen is lit up. “Someone is here,” a distorted voice warns amidst the whir and click of mechanical noise.

A fleeting glance behind him sends him running forward blindly. He doesn’t know what he saw in the darkness, but it was terrifying. He sprints down side alleys and rarely used streets that are devoid of life. _Where is everyone?_  he wonders as he races away. This bustling city of light is like a ghost town right now, and it’s so scary to realize that he’s alone.

It only gets worse when the lights go off. First one, then another, until the entire street is black. The entire city. Baekhyun slams against a locked gate. Frantic, he pulls at the bars, calculating with a quick glance if he get over it before he’s overtaken. It’s impossible – he’d never make it in time.

Resigned, he spins around and rests against the bars. Even the stars are hidden now by the oppressive blackness that’s coming for him. The last streetlights blink out, leaving him completely blind. Baekhyun has to dig his nails into his palms to keep his focus. He can’t allow the panic to overwhelm him.

With a deep, steadying breath, he forces out all the pinpricks of light that he keeps safe inside himself. Sharp little needlepoints explode out in front of him, illuminating everything with a light so bright that a native of this planet would be blinded. Baekhyun is, of course, immune, and he’s able to see with startling clarity the red mist recoiling with each hit.

But he can’t keep it up forever. It’s only a matter of time before the light fades, and the monster regains its focus. Baekhyun seizes his opportunity to escape.

*****

The day has been too long. A little girl lost her battle with cancer in the morning. Soon after, a young man was wheeled in on a gurney, suffering from a heart attack. He died seconds after he arrived. Three more of Yixing’s patients died throughout his shift.

It’s never happened before. Around these parts, Yixing is known as something of a miracle doctor. There are hushed rumors that he’s an angel sent from above. The townspeople are superstitious. When his back is turned on the way out of the clinic, they whisper about him. They worry that they’ve upset him in some way – that they’ve displeased God and are now being denied the gift of healing.

It makes Yixing feel even worse. He wonders if it’s his fault these people died. If he’d left when Junmyeon called him, if he’d gone to meet Jongdae already, would this have happened? Would they have been able to live under another doctor’s care? Yixing had been warned that their powers were acting out of control.

These thoughts haunt him on his way to the restaurant. He hesitates as he parks his bicycle. Should he even go in today? What if he kills this kind old man, too?

Ultimately, he only enters because he knows the old man will stay all night waiting for him if he doesn’t show up. The man is too kind. Yixing remembers him twenty years younger when he first opened the restaurant – a middle-aged man trying to make something out of his life before it was too late. Yixing had been his first customer all those years ago.

The old man is the only in the town that remembers Yixing from back then. It’s lucky for both of them that the old man is too superstitious to ask any questions. He simply accepts it, grinning kindly when Yixing visits each night and always leaving out tea and food for him.

Today the man is in pain. Yixing can feel it in his aura the moment he walks in the door. With soft words and gentle hands, he makes the old man sit. He silently begs his powers to cooperate as he tries to coax the old man to sleep with his touch. Death always upsets him, but this old man dying by his hands would be especially hard to take.

Yifan isn’t even here to cheer him up this time. Yixing dearly misses his friend. He can’t begin to imagine how Chanyeol is coping.

The tea cools untouched as he writes on his phone. There’s a melody in his head, a tune that he can’t seem to forget. He furrows his brows as the lights flicker in the corner. Maybe there’s a rolling blackout again. It happens from time to time in the town.

He’s about to write the whole thing off when his phone screen glitches, showing black and grey and dizzying lines. There’s a buzzing in his ears while the light continues to flicker. He jumps back, shocked and stares with a gaping mouth.

He gets the uncanny feeling that he should leave. Right now. Running out the door, he jumps on his bicycle and pedals away. He’s not sure where he’s supposed to go, but he feels like Luhan is trying to tell him something.

If only he could hear.

*****

“Idiot,” Kyungsoo mutters, watching the marbles slide around the floor. It’d taken him awhile to achieve the level of focus necessary to get it to work, but his powers finally decided to cooperate enough that he was able to find Chanyeol.

Each vibration and spin of the silver balls tells him what he wants to know. Kyungsoo is many things where the others are few – that doesn’t mean he’s more, or they are less. It is simply a fact that on this particular planet, he controls the very ground on which everything is built and all the creatures that inhabit it. He is strength and stability, earth and beasts, and ever changing, but unbreakable. Kyungsoo is meant to be obeyed, and the ground under his silver marbles answers to him now.

It’s telling him that Chanyeol’s running wildly around Arizona, searching for Yifan franticly. It’s telling him that Chanyeol won’t find him because Yifan’s not here. He’s not _on the planet,_ and that doesn’t make any goddamn sense at all. Where could he and Luhan be? Kyungsoo won’t even entertain the thought of them being dead. It’s simply impossible. They’d know. They’d _feel_  it.

No, Yifan and Luhan are definitely alive somewhere. The problem is finding them.

But more pressingly, the earth is telling him that he’s in danger. Something is watching him. Following him. It knows where he sleeps and how many locks he keeps on his door. It sees where his family stays, the habits they’ve all accumulated over the years. It craves what they are.

It knows them, and it is coming for them.

Kyungsoo won’t be taken. He will find Chanyeol, and then together they will meet with everyone else. The ten of them will find Yifan and Luhan. When the eclipse comes, they’ll finally leave this dust ball and return to their home. Anything else is unimaginable.

Kyungsoo will not _allow_  any other outcome.

**********

“Damn it!” Luhan yells, face distorted by frustration. “They’re not paying attention!”

Yifan scowls, heavy brows pulled down in straight lines over his eyes and tiny mouth in a flat line. Apparently, Luhan can hear them, but it is entirely one way. They can’t hear him shouting out for them at the top of his lungs; though, it’s so loud that it makes Yifan’s ears ring. It’s maddening to not be able to help them. Luhan told him earlier that Chanyeol burned an entire forest down when he found out Yifan was missing. The knowledge is flattering in a way, to reaffirm that Chanyeol cares so much even if he’s always known.

All twelve of them are cosmically intertwined, but Chanyeol and he were created together back on their home world. Two halves of a whole, made in the very same instant. Mated before they took their first breaths. Yifan is the timeless dragon, and Chanyeol is the undying phoenix. They soar together, live together, love together. It’s never changed throughout the years, and Yifan has no fear that it ever will.

As long as they can get everyone else out of the goddamn maze, that is. The others still think the eclipse can save them, take them home, completely unaware that they’re still trapped and hallucinating inside the maze. Every breath they take pulls the red mist into their lungs, rendering them powerless and continuing the fevered dreams.

“We _will_  get them out, Luhan. I swear on my life,” he promises with conviction, meeting Luhan’s determined gaze head on.

Yifan won’t leave them all behind no matter what. Even if it means going back in the maze himself.


End file.
